"I have begun, or had begun, a song, and flung it into the fire. It was in remembrance of Mary Duff, my first of flames, before most people begin to burn. I wonder what the devil is the matter with me! I can do nothing, and--fortunately there is nothing to do. It has lately been in my power to make two persons (and their connections) comfortable, _pro tempore_, and one happy, _ex tempore_,--I rejoice in the last particularly, as it is an excellent man[90]. I wish there had been more inconvenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then there had been more merit. We are all selfish--and I believe, ye gods of Epicurus! I believe in Rochefoucault about _men_, and in Lucretius (not Busby's translation) about yourselves. Your bard has made you very _nonchalant_ and blest; but as he has excused _us_ from damnation, I don't envy you your blessedness _much_--a little, to be sure. I remember, last year, * * said to me, at * *, 'Have we not passed our last month like the gods of Lucretius?' And so we had. She is an adept in the text of the original (which I like too); and when that booby Bus. sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. But, the devil prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent answer, saying, that 'after perusing it, her conscience would not permit her to allow her name to remain on the list of subscribblers.' Last night, at Lord H.'s--Mackintosh, the Ossulstones, Puysegur, &c. there--I was trying to recollect a quotation (as _I_ think) of Stael's, from some Teutonic sophist about architecture. 'Architecture,' says this Macoronico Tedescho, 'reminds me of frozen music.' It is somewhere--but where?--the demon of perplexity must know and won't tell. I asked M., and he said it was not in her: but P----r said it must be _hers_, it was so _like_. H. laughed, as he does at all 'De l'Allemagne,'--in which, however, I think he goes a little too far. B., I hear, condemns it too. But there are fine passages;--and, after all, what is a work--any--or every work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two, every day's journey? To be sure, in Madame, what we often mistake, and 'pant for,' as the 'cooling stream,' turns out to be the '_mirage_' (critice _verbiage_); but we do, at last, get to something like the temple of Jove Ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only remembered to gladden the contrast. "Called on C * *, to explain * * *. She is very beautiful, to my taste, at least; for on coming home from abroad, I recollect being unable to look at any woman but her--they were so fair, and unmeaning, and _blonde_. The darkness and regularity of her features reminded me of my 'Jannat al Aden.' But this impression wore off; and now I can look at a fair woman, without longing for a Houri. She was very good-tempered, and every thing was explained.